Sunday 8 April 2007

I'm With You

So back up a few posts, and Tom is talking about the reinvention of his sub-theme. I think everybody at least had a personal theme in their childhood, and probably still has it - its theirs and that's why they like it so. So I've had my own since I was probably about 7, playing with duplo. It slowly evolved until it became what I used in Bzp's .Space, the Federation Advance. Very stereotypical and missing large amounts of originality. Now it was over the course of this faction that my building skills really improved, I went from rainbow warrior to the disciplined colour schemer I am today; but each time I build I feel like the faction's unoriginal presence is betraying me. So for a while now I've been tossing around ideas to form a new sub-theme, something that goes with my styles and colour availability and is relatively original. Now I've been doing a lot of reading in the subject of ancient Greece recently, both the Iliad and Odyssey, a condensed history book, 300 (even for its not really historical values), and the Aeneid (roman, but greek in its telling). I'm also taking a class, and will be taking another next year. I really like Greece, there's something romantic about crafting one's history into epic poems, and the belief that maybe some of it did happen. So what does this have to do with Space? Well the idea came of a diverse sub-theme, one which contains several styles in itself. Astropolis!

Alright, here's today's feature. Jerac always comes through with some interesting looking microscale ships, and the Cerberi is no exception. His style always combines a sturdy and heavily armoured ship that spins off many delicate and intricate looking greebles. And he's never one to turn down the outer-hull technique. The Cerberi is also an experiment in turret design, which is one of the more troublesome aspects of building microscale. The scale of the gun always seems to large, but Jerac demonstrates some ingenious thinking here and comes up with a few fancy looking designs. Excellent use of droid arms as well, wish I had some in something other then tan! The rear fins around the engine are a great touch too, despite not really having a large impact on how the ship looks or operates, they provide that finite addition of detail that brings the ship to life. Manuvering Rockets = Win. The only thing I really wish had some more details are the engines! Albeit, engines are a difficulty, but I think if you think of them as an interesting challenge and start with a basic idea in your head then it does become rather fun to tinker with various ideas.

So once I perhaps come up with a logo, bit of a backstory, and an MOC or two - I'll unveil this new venture into sub-theming. I've also got a frigate for my old faction lying around, interesting build but nothing revolutionary.

2 comments:

Lukas said...

I think most subthemes come about if one finds oneself building something at one point, and then building another in a similar style or colors later. If you plan it out beforehand, it might not succeed as well.

Bren said...

Thats also why a lot of thinking went into this, its not much of a deviation from what I'm doing, but gives a bit of a different direction to go in.